Wild Grapes

The summer after my grandfather died, when I was 12, I went to spend some time with my grandmother, who lived in western Tennessee, 600 miles from the Lowcountry. I learned more about food in those few weeks than I would learn in many years to come. It was Grandma’s approach to living more than her recipes, however, that so influenced me, and I am forever grateful for that one time alone with a real homemaker and her garden. There was much solace for her in her daily chores, and I too learned to enjoy hanging clothes on the line (which I still do), watching for cracks in the soil around the potato plants, and drying apples in the sun.